Word Blocked Review—The Multidimensional Boggle

[Atariboy]

Quirkat is best known for their ultra-niche set of card games for the Minis program, the Basha card games which I extensively studied and learned how to play. They are good and interesting card games but definitely not for those who lack patience and perseverance. If you are not a manic-obsessive person, the Basha series is merely a clusterfrap disguised as a video game.

Then there was their Mena Speed, a totally forgettable game. I shouldn’t have mentioned this, since you might get seriously curious and follow the link to the review. Stop. Continue reading this review, because Word Blocked is Quirkat’s and one of the PlayStation Mobile lineup’s best games yet.

Word Blocked is a word game that is presented differently. Maybe there are other games that play like this, but I haven’t encountered one. It seems to be the Touchscreen-Era lovechild of Boggle and the Rubik’s Cube.

The game presents a 3×3 golden neon cube with letters engraved on each square. You can easily manipulate the cube like a Rubik’s Cube. You can twist the rows and columns in four directions, mixing up the letters as you please. And then you can swipe the screen in four directions so that you can rotate the entire cube to search for new words.

The Boggle part is where you string up words upon words by merely touching the letters, lighting them up. On the right side, you can see the letters you’ve highlighted to form a word, score, level and the submit button. There is no “cancel” button; you have to unlace the letters you’ve inputted by touching them in the reverse order. Anything can be strung up as long as they are adjacent, even if they don’t belong to the same “face” of the cube.

Interestingly enough, you can string up letters and then rotate, twist and turn the cube to find more letters for your pending word. However, you cannot build up a combo with this method. You can only gain multipliers if you can correctly submit words in succession without twisting anything.

The touchscreen controls are magnificent, probably the best among PlayStation Mobile games. Though the menus presented are small, they accurately responded with my desired outcomes, and the same goes for the gameplay proper.

There are two modes, Relaxed and Time Limit. Sadly there are no online leaderboards just yet. Personally, I am hoping for Quirkat to update this game so that I can proceed to dominate the online leaderboards.

The Relaxed Mode is true to its word, as you can go on and on pinning down words without much fuss and until your own limitations stop you from proceeding. For every 100 points you score, the level goes up and new letters are dealt. As you progress, fewer vowels are given, and finical consonants like Q and Z are handed out lavishly.

In Time Limit Mode, you are given only two minutes to come up with the best score you can achieve. There are bombs and missiles to help you in changing words on the cube.

Certainly, you won’t care about graphics with these types of games, but that doesn’t mean Word Blocked’s graphics are horrible; they are well above average. The presentation is also good, as well as the elevator music that accompanies the game.

Word Blocked is Underline without the difficult touch controls, but with limited game modes. That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun, though, because there is plenty to be had with this one.

9.5/10

POSTED BY JASPER NIKKI ON FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2012 AT 9:17 PM